Sorrowful Diamonds
by Lady Eleanor Boleyn
Summary: On the eve of her daughter's marriage,Druella Black nee Rosier contemplates an old family heirloom. Challenge response


**AN: This is my response to Erika's prompt for the the three word challenge - "Diamonds, Rust and Stranger"**. **Drabble is exactly 800 words**. **I couldn't find Druella Rosier's mother's name so I made it up. Please read, enjoy and review!**

"I'd like to thank you all for coming. We are grateful that you could all make it to join us in wishing the new couple well tomorrow. But first, if you could please raise your glasses in a toast to our beautiful daughter, the bride to be, Narcissa."

Druella Perseverance Black _nee _Rosier watched as her husband raised his glass and looked down the table to where their daughter sat, his eyes meeting Narcissa's as she raised her head to acknowledge the toast that was being said in her honour.

"Narcissa!" The single word rang the rafters and Druella noted with pride how Narcissa half-smiled at the fervour with which the word was said, but nothing else. She was too much a Black and a Rosier to do anything else. In fact, Druella admitted reluctantly, despite being only eighteen and barely out of Hogwarts, she was handling the whole situation better than Druella herself had done, all those years ago. Only her cornflower blue eyes betrayed even the slightest hint of how excited the girl was to be marrying the object of her childhood crush, Master Lucius Malfoy.

The sight of Narcissa sitting there, her golden curls pinned back to show off the creamy skin of her throat with the expensive aquamarine necklace that the Malfoys had sent her as a wedding present glittering around it, suddenly put a thought into Druella's head.

Excusing herself with a soft murmur, Druella went up to her bedroom and sat down at her dresser.

Her hands trailed uselessly over its dark polished wood for a few moments before she took a deep breath and opened the bottom drawer on the right hand side.

The diamonds glittered up at her, their every faucet catching the light.

Despite herself, Druella caught her breath at the sight of them. They were perfect, even after all these years. She picked one up, remembering what her mother Ordelia Rosier had said to her when she first gave Druella the diamonds, on the eve of her marriage to Cygnus, as she did so.

"_These are the Rosier Diamonds, my dear. They were given to your father's ancestress, Laverne Rosier, by an Indian Crown Prince. They have been passed down the generations ever since. They either go to the eldest daughter of the house or, if the previous owner has been blessed with a son, they pass to that son's wife upon the event of her marriage into the House of Rosier. Take care of them for me, and, one day, when the time is right, pass them on to your own daughter or daughter in law."_

"Well, that didn't work out, Mother." Druella murmured, picking up an entire string of the gems; holding them to her throat and turning her head this way and that to admire the effect. "Cygnus wouldn't let me give them to Bellatrix. Though I won't deny it's probably just as well. She'd never have treated them with the respect that they deserve."

"_But why don't you give them to Narcissa, Druella?"_ Druella heard the words almost as clearly as though her mother was standing right behind her, even though she had died of an attack of spattergroit before Narcissa had even been born, never mind on the cusp of marriage.

"_I know Andromeda is a stranger to you; that she was never a daughter of the House of Black at all, but Narcissa is. She's a Black Princess as much as Bellatrix is, with the exception that she admires jewellery. And did Cygnus not say that you could give these diamonds to your second daughter, if not your first? Why don't you give them to her?"_

"Because...Because...Oh, I don't have to explain myself to you! You don't even exist! You're a voice in my head, that's all!"

Druella dropped the diamonds back into their box abruptly, and slammed the drawer on them, before clenching her hands on her dresser, focusing on the tiniest of details as she fought to control her breathing.

There was a crease in one of her handkerchiefs, she noted. A drop of scent still glistening on her most recently used perfume bottles. A long blonde hair sticking out of her hairbrush. A speck of rust on the silver plated lock of the drawer she had just shut.

Druella brushed her wrist against the perfume bottle, adding the last drop to the amount she was already wearing; pulled her hairs out of the bristles of her brush; smoothed out her handkerchief and then rose to her feet, preparing to go back downstairs.

For a moment, she hesitated over calling a house elf to deal with the rust on her dresser drawer, but then decided against it.

"_It doesn't matter." _ she told herself. _"Those diamonds will never be worn again anyway."_


End file.
